


Wander

by Ink_and_Pen_on_Paper



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood, Gen, Goretober, I wrote this on a whim, Implied/Referenced Suicide, There's no plot, completely self-indulgent, like at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 12,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23435428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_and_Pen_on_Paper/pseuds/Ink_and_Pen_on_Paper
Summary: Something I wrote for the 2018 (I think) Goretober art prompt.
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Male Character
Kudos: 1





	1. Bandages

Aina wrapped the bandage tighter around the gash in her arm, desperately hoping for the blood to stop. Already a pile of blood-soaked bandages had fallen to her feet. Somehow, she felt no pain. Wrapping the bandage a final round around her arm, Aina tied it, then lowered her arm.

She'd have to continue forward if she was to find more supplies and survive. That maze she'd somehow ended up in was a deathtrap, but a part of her saw it as an asylum. She laid a hand on her utility, checking that the knife she'd picked up earlier was still with her. With that, she stood up and began walking.

Her leather boots clunked dully on the concrete floor. The walls and ceiling of the corridor were also concrete. Varying from turn to turn, the walls ranged in materials from wood to a weird crystal-like red stone. All corridors were somehow lit, despite there not being a single proper light source in any of the hallways. Aina had never once bothered to stop and question what her surroundings were, instead wandering around, hoping to find a way out.

There were others in that maze. There were times when Aina had been ambushed by groups that had banded together, other times where random people would come charging headon alone and unarmed, and others more, where a well-weathered, and armed, fighter would suddenly shoot at Aina.

That was how Aina had received that wound. Her sweater was coated in dried blood around the cut, but despite the severity of the wound, Aina felt no pain. Maybe it was because of the adrenaline, maybe it was something else. If it were something else that'd explain a lot, like how she felt no hunger, no thirst, no tiredness. All Aina could do was continue to trudge through those empty hallways, mindlessly ambling around from corridor to corridor.

She came to a stop at a fork in the corridor, one path leading to the left, the walls shifting into iron. On the right, was a wooden corridor, walls stained black with dried blood. Aina turned left. Iron was stronger than wood, impossible to burn, and far less likely for one to fall into the "void" through the floor.

She continued trudging forward, step by step, rubber soles over iron plaid floor, her knife at her side, handgun strapped to her waist on her left, the stink of death and blood heavy in the air.


	2. Bites

A clatter of metal rang through the air as a rustic sword fell to the ground. Aina plunged her knife into her opponents stomach, twisting the blade before pulling the blade out again. A gush of blood flowed to the ground, the man collapsing immediately.

Aina stood over the dying body, watching blood gush out from the wound she had inflicted upon the man. His skin had gone pale, though the body was still warm.

Aina ran her tongue over her slips, then bent down and picked up the sword. It was a single-edged, curved metal sword. It'd be a good weapon in contrast with her bread knife. Aina reached her hand towards the body, slipping the sword sheath over the bodies head, then taking it and slipping it over her own head, setting the blade into the sheath.

She continued forward.

Aina had lost track of the time she had spent wandering in that maze. Perhaps she was already dead. She didn't know. But people died in there all the time. There was one time, when she was wandering through a cobblestone hallway, where Aina had stumbled upon a body, covered in bites.

There were animal bites, some chunks of flesh missing from the body, as well has human teeth marks, which had drawn blood and peppered the body's skin. Aina had simply shot a glance at the then still fresh body and walked on. She didn't care who had been killed, or why. All that mattered to her was how and what killed them. After all, she didn't want to be next.

Communication was close to zero in the maze. Once someone ran into another person, the chances of them meeting again was one in a million, making each person a jackpot of supplies for the other. Whoever walked out of the scuffle alive would be the one with the new weapon. 

Aina, unlike many others, was a scavenger. Instead of dashing into fights, she'd pick up uneeded scraps that remained on dead bodies. It was only when she really needed to did she fight back.

Even so, fights were common. Although thirst, exhaustion, and hunger were dulled, medical supplies were precious.

After all, the moment you died, you stayed dead. 


	3. Eyes

_All it had taken for her to fall was a match. A single match. She'd run through the fields already, desperately trying to outrun something. But she didn't know what._

_She dashed up to the stone porch, slamming the door open._

_Then she froze_

_And screamed._

_There were eyes, human eyes, animal eyes, everywhere. They lay rolling around on the ground, blood sinking into the wooden planks of the floor._

_She whipped around to see the fire of her pursuers torches. She drew in a breath, then warily stepped over the eyes, and continued running. She didn't know where she was running to. All she knew was that she couldn't outrun THEM and she needed a solution._

_Fast._

_The girl pulled open another door to reveal a row of stairs, leading down into the darkness below. She backed away from the door, ready to run in a different direction, but froze when the sound of a window breaking clattered through the air._

_She drew in a breath, then whipped back around and dashed down the stairs, into the darkness of the cellar._

\---

Aina opened her eyes, then sat up. She glanced around, then stood up. The hallways had morphed from iron sheets to stone in those brief minutes that she'd had her eyes closed.

It wasn't a dream that had plagued her, nor was it a memory. Something in between that Aina couldn't really name. That fragment showed up a lot in Aina's mind, but she could never figure out who exactly that girl was. Did she have something to do with Aina's life outside of the maze? or was it something else?

She let out a small breath, glancing down briefly, then lifted her head and turned left, continuing down the single lane hallway. The katana she'd found a while ago dragged on the ground, the blade a bit too long for Aina's short stature. The effect was a dull screeching sound as the metal bottom of the sheath scraped against the ground. 

No doubt other people could hear her from yards away, but Aina didn't care. She could take care of herself. She saw things that often times, other people didn't. Sometimes it did her good. Other times it hurt her.

Knowledge was a powerful thing. But for Aina, having knowledge meant giving up her past, her memories.

She stopped questioning the way the maze worked a long time ago. Illusion? Magic? She didn't care.

All she had to do was continue walking forward.


	4. Angelic/Demonic

_The girl could hear singing in the distance, something similar to that of a church chorus. But despite the high and flowing notes, it created a sense of dread in her. She continued down the dark hallway, slowly drawing closer towards the music, unable to turn back for the fear of death._

_\---_

Monsters had become a normal thing the longer Aina remained in the maze. In the beginning, she'd only seen other humans, like her, wielding guns and knives, desperately trying to survive.

But as time passed, those humans slowly began to disappear, monsters taking their place. There were times were Aina felt as if she herself were changing, becoming a monster, no longer human.

It could be a side effect of the maze, it could be something else. That was one of the few things Aina cared about. It could be an illusion of insanity, it could really be something fantastical. Either way, finding the source of the monsters could potentially save her life.

It was times like that where she wasn't shameless about wishing for power. Knowledge was power. That was a well known thing.

It was just the way of the maze. No human could comprehend it, and the lower you went in the maze, the more monsters there were, the more chances of dying, the more chances of becoming a monster.

One could view the maze as a judgemental hell. Where those who were chosen went down to either die and turn into demons or rise to become angels.

But those said angels, in Aina's eyes, were nothing more than death itself.

She had no reason to become one, to listen to then, to heed their orders while those around her dropped to their knees. She'd rather become a monster than turn into a creature like them.

But maybe, she already was a monster. There was a quote from the past that Aina vaguely remembered. "One who hunts monsters must heed caution to not become a monster themselves." She'd forgotten who'd said it, but she knew for certain that she had not watched her surroundings.

In the maze, life was life, and death was death. It was either one or the other. The same went for insanity and sanity. Everyone went insane at one point in the maze, but the rate at which their minds withered away and the final display differed from person to person.

In some cases, the person simply lost it, wrapping themselves in delusions. In others, like with Aina's case, they became nothing more than what in the outside world would be viewed as as a mentally ill serial killer.

That was just the way it was.


	5. Brain

A clatter sounded through the air as Aina dropped her knife, grabbing a brick that lay on the floor nearby and brought it down on the lady's head, hard. A gruesome crack sounded through the air as the lady fell, blood staining the corner of the brick.

Aina sighed, bending down to pick up her knife. She glanced over at the body before her, not feeling anything. It was evident that that woman was already turning, no longer human. Although from afar she could easily be mistaken for a human, up close one could see that her pupils had contracted so much that they couldn't be seen. The iris of one eye was completely blood-red while the other had turned a dark shade of purple-blue.

She was turning, there was no doubt about it. Aina sighed slightly to herself, then brought her knife forward. A horrible ripping sound sounded as she slashed through the body's chest, digging the heart out before dropping the organ on the ground and crushing it with her foot.

She brought the brick down on the skull again and again, stroke by stroke, slowly destroying the skull and exposing the brain. Her final act was to drop the brick and reach for the lighter she had in her utility belt, bending down and setting the body aflame.

Another turning prevented, another monster gone.

Aina stood upright, pocketing the lighter, and turned around, walking off.

A burning body lay behind her, smoke rising from the ashes that soon remained.

\---

"We can save you. But life comes at a price."

"Tell me what you want."

"Simple.

All you need to do is kill.

We will give you the ability to do so.

And you will survive."

"What if I want to leave this place?"

"That will be up to you."

\---

**_What is this world that we live in_ **

**_Why are we here_ **

**_What reason did They have to force this fate upon us_ **

**_We wish to return to our lives of before_ **

**_This judgement is unjust_ **

**_We were never the sinners_ **

**_They are the murderers_ **

Aina ran her eyes over the text that ran along the wall in dried blood. She wondered of the thoughts that must have been running through the writers mind, though she didn't necessarily disagree with the words before her. 

She turned away from the wall, and continued on.


	6. Strangle

_The boy's face was contorted in a gruesome expression of desperation. The girl didn't care though. The further down she ran, the further away she got from her pursuers. Even if it meant killing this one child, she was desperate to live._

_Her grip tightened around the boys neck as a weak coughing sound escaped him. Patience. That was what she needed. Patience. Patience for the world and the things around her._

_With one last weak cough, the boy fell limp. He was only brain-dead, but that was suitable enough. His heart and muscles would stop moving with time. The girl dropped the body to the ground and continued down the long strand of stairs._

_The air grew dark and cold, nothing like the things of above._

_Unbeknownst to her, with each step she took and didn't look back, the stairs above her dissolved into dust. Above ground, the house disappeared into nothing but a barren patch of grass, her pursuers turning into nothing but a pile of stones._

_Unbeknownst to her, fear had been her worst mistake._

_\---_

Fear.

What exactly was it?

Before she'd stumbled into the maze, Aina had read that it was a psychological reaction that kept the body poised to fight or flee, if dire enough activating adrenaline.

Now she wondered if it was just an illusion.

Illusion.

Illusions were everywhere in the maze. The walls, rooms, people, monsters, halls, everything, constantly changing and shifting like the tide to the moon.

The moon.

It'd been a while since she'd seen the sky.

The last thing that had been closest to seeing the sky was when Aina stumbled upon a chamber. A decomposing body had lain on a wooden cot in the corner of the room. The ceilings and walls had been painted black, likely with monster blood, and peppered with white spots and shapes, simulating stars, the sun, the moon.

_Whoever it was that had painted those had obviously wished to see the sky again._

Aina really didn't wish for anything. The only wish she had was to leave. To stop whoever it was that had thrown her into the maze.

_Whoever it was that had pushed her down the well._

Aina's feet skidded on the dirt ground as she pressed her shoulder against the metal door. Now was not the time to dwell on the past. There were monsters on the other side of the wall, and the only thing between her and them was a door.

Aina gritted her teeth as she dug her heels into the ground. This was one hell of a way to start on a new floor.


	7. Shot

The first time Aina had killed someone, it had been completely out of accident.

It had only been a couple days since she'd entered the maze, having wandered into a bunker in the middle of the woods. There were no monsters at the levels so close to the surface, but once one entered, they were trapped.

Aina remembered stepping down into the old war bunker, walking a couple of feet forward, then turned around to head back up only to be met with a solid stone wall.

That had been the beginning.

Aina had wandered the maze-like passages for days when she'd finally run into someone. Like the fool she had been, she'd approached them, wanting to ask for help.

She left the area with a bullet wound in her side and a dead body behind her.

That was where she'd gotten the handgun, her first weapon.

Her first weapon.

With time, Aina grew stronger, healed, scarred. She lost track of time. Time had no importance in that world.

She lost track of time, and with it, a part of reality.

Aina rested her head between her legs, the monsters having finally moved on.

But she didn't know whether it was safe to head out yet. She might as well explore the room she had. Aina reached into her belt. Beside the lighter, was a box of matches. She struck one, then held it in front of her, the dim light lit a part of the dark room, light reflecting off of puddles on the floor that Aina hoped where puddles of water.

She took a tentative step forward, stepping over the puddles. As she continued on, the room slowly shifted from a stone room to a large cavern. The light in the room grew brighter, but it was not the light from her match. A fragment of a memory rose in the back of Aina's head, but she pushed it back. She'd dwell on the past later.

The moment she stepped into the glowing cavern, her match snuffled out, the flame disappearing into smoke.

Magic.

That was the one thought that remained in her mind. Magic.

But whether it would kill or heal, Aina did not know. The chances of this actually being something important were low, but in all the years (probably) that Aina had spent wandering the passageways, this was the first time she saw something like this.

The first time she'd had to use real like. The first time she'd seen darkness. The first time in a long time that she felt anything.


	8. Hanahaki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Okay so, I was completely stuck with how to incorporate this into this plot. It's a lot easier if your drawing this rather than writing something, so I'm just going to turn this into blood-covered flowers/petals. 
> 
> For those of you who don't know what Hanahaki is, it's basically where you cough up flowers (usually sakura) and blood due to an unrequited love.

It wasn't anything out of the normal, but at this point, Aina didn't know what was considered to be normal. She'd forgotten many things in exchange for the things she now knew.

Was something like that considered normal on the surface? She didn't know anymore. She didn't know anymore.

_Pain. Bare feet running over sharp gravel. Cavern. Stone overhead. Glowing. Glowing. Not real. Forgetting. Blood. Beauty. More blood. Run. Run. Run. Don't look back._

_Familiar._

_Familiar._

_Nothing made sense._

It felt as if someone had stabbed Aina in the back of the neck. The phantom pain refused to recede, and Aina couldn't figure out why and how it came to be there. The pain spread, up to the back of her head.

She stopped short in her tracks, willing the migraine to recede. Aina really hated when flashes of memory came while she was conscious. It was almost always painful.

She drew in a shaky breath, closing her eyes, then opened them again, and took another daring step forward.

\---

Aina didn't know how long she spent wandering the cavern. There appeared to be no monsters in the area, but the glowing stones were unsettling as if they were placed there as a warning.

It was out of the ordinary. Definitely. Most certainly.

Aina froze in her tracks, glancing forward. The stones suddenly cut off and the cavern ascended into darkness. Like the room from before, no artificial light was provided. She let out a sigh, then reached into a pocket and pulled out another match, striking it. That was two matches wasted today.

A large set of stone stairs were revealed. Aina had no reason to continue down that path, but she had no reason not to either. Curiosity was the only thing that drove her forward.

The corridor was damp and dark aside from the dim glow of the match Aina held in her hand. They somewhat resembled the corridors of medieval English castles. The steps were uneven and made of cobblestone. The corridor wound in a circle, slowly spiraling up towards what Aina could only assume was the surface.

The end of the stairway led to an empty corridor. A raggedy velvet carpet lay spread along the ground. Faded paintings hung from the walls, ghostly-white faces staring off into nothing. 

Aina came to a stop at the end of the hallway. There, sat a throne. Upon the throne, sat a boy. A boy covered in blood and flower petals.

Her match snuffed out, and the world turned into black.


	9. Horror Game/Movie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: let's be honest here. I completely bullshitted this prompt just so that the story could move on. This one wasn't even that gory in my opinion.

"What do you want?"

Aina couldn't move. She couldn't speak, not willingly, at least. Her mouth moved without her noticing. "To be free."

"Why?"

Here, she hesitated. "I... do not know."

The voice seemed to dip its head if voices could do that before the darkness faded and the world lit up again.

Aina stood in the center throne room, a long stretching hallway behind her. A grand chandelier hung above her head, and the room was lavishly decorated. Aina stared at the throne, now empty.

There had been a boy, a boy covered in flowers and blood. She knew that. She knew that she saw that. And unlike everything else, she was certain that what she saw was not an illusion, for once, but reality.

She sighed to herself, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling. The ceiling had once been painted with vibrant colors, but with time, the paint had begun to fade and peel. The only image that Aina could make out of the painting now was the face of a young girl, who stared down at something below her, her entire face covered in paint splotches that strangely resembled blood.

Another uncovered fragment was that of a young boy. The face had fallen away, but the body showed a figure bearing a blood-covered spear, seeming to be running from something that the painting didn't show.

Aina lowered her head, then turned around to head back down the corridor. Step by step, she wandered through the unnatural light. The paintings that hung on the walls seemed to stare at her, their ghostly eyes following her every move.

Aina stopped at the edge of the stairway, staring down the winding staircase. She wondered how she'd get back to the maze, considering how the mix of caverns, castle rooms, corridors, and everything else was a maze in itself. She didn't even know for certain if that room still remained.

She couldn't know for certain. Nothing there was logical. Half the time, Aina felt as if she were nothing more than a character in some horribly designed horror game.

She traced her hand on the stone wall as she made her way back down the winding staircase, stopping at the bottom. She narrowed her eyes. The cavern had seemingly disappeared, and the staircase had spat her back out in the ever-changing hallways of the maze.

Aina sighed to herself, then stepped out into the hallway. She turned around to see the staircase melt into the wall, disappearing as if it had never been there to begin with, the stone closing around it.


	10. Knives

The boy opened his eyes. He couldn't understand it. He didn't get it. Why. why could he see? Feel? Hear? He should be dead. He should've left that world behind a long time ago. So why? The moment the Labyrinth closed he and all the others should've disappeared from existence. So why? He shouldn't be alive. But then again, was he alive, to begin with?

He didn't understand. The only way it made sense would be if the labyrinth opened again. And the only way for that to happen would be for a chosen to wander in.

And that was impossible.

After all, they were all dead.

\---

Aina ducked as a knife whipped toward her head, the blade narrowly missing her eye. She whipped out of foot, nailing her attacker in the shin and kicking their feet from beneath them. Aina had always had an unnatural amount of strength, able to throw people nearly three times her size to the ground, even before she wandered into the maze. 

After the time she spent down there, it seemed as if that unnatural strength had only increased, granting her the ability to snap limbs like twigs and break through rock as if it were chalk. The ability scared even Aina, but she'd often push the fears into the back of her head, focusing more on striding forward and surviving than questioning herself.

Aina stepped back as her attacker whipped back around, blade like appendages sprouting from their back. Great. It was another monster. 

Aina let out a breath, then jumped back as the claws whipped towards her, narrowly dodging the attack. The creature, once seemingly human, hunched backward. Aina could hear the unnatural snap of bone as its spine bent backward, the flesh of the monster melting and fusing until all that remained was a blob of flesh and jutting bones, blades whipping about like built in knives.

She jumped back, slipping her knife into her belt and pulling out a sword. With unnatural speed and agility, Aina dashed into the storm of blades, blocking strikes that flew at her before making it to the main body and stabbing the creature to the ground with one hand. She reached into her belt with the other, and pulled out the lighter, bending down to set the creature aflame.

The body burst into a large column of red flames, the colour so bright it was blinding. Aina jumped back, barely missing getting scalded, before tucking the lighter back into her belt.

When the fire died down, all that remained was a pile of ashes and fifteen kitchen knives.


	11. Stitches

_The boy wandered through the empty hallways. The Labyrinth had reopened, that, he was certain of by now. He needed to shut the system down again, but before the fall, he'd only been an apprentice. All the elders had died a long time ago. His mentor had likely been wiped from existence along with the rest._

_He didn't know what he was doing. All he knew was the basics of the Labyrinth, how the place was dangerous, a maze, ever-changing. All he knew was that somewhere in the Labyrinth, there was a castle room, one with a throne in the center and paintings on the walls, that was said to be the waking place of 'those who were lost'._

_Perhaps he had come from that room. Perhaps he could locate that room, and wake his mentor- the elders- anyone- who knew more than he did._

_But there was only so much that he could do, stuck where he was._

_He turned left, wandering into an empty hallway, sighing as he sensed the stone closing in behind him, and the telltale rumble of another tunnel opening up before him._

_He was spat out into another hallway, right in front of a girl who stood covered in ash._

_\---_

"You..." Aina tilted her head. "Are very familiar."

The boy backed away, pressing himself to the wall, shakily staring at Aina. He was very familiar, someone that Aina could say that she recognized. But the only way that would work would be if she had seen him somewhere before, and that was close to impossible, knowing the maze.

\---

She had black hair, grey eyes, and ghostly-white skin, her eyes the telltale sign of a Chosen.

\---

The boy had grey eyes and grey hair. He was slightly taller than Aina, but had a thin build. His clothes were covered in dried blood. Strange scars traced their way up and down his arms and neck. His clothes were ragged, held together by old-fashioned stitches, something that resembled clothes from medieval times rather than the modern look of hoodies and leggings, like the ones Aina donned.

"Who are you?" His voice trembled, shaking with something that bordered on the edge of fear, but held confusion too.

Aina narrowed her eyes in return. "I should be the one asking you that."


	12. Skeleton/Bones

He didn't have a name. That was the first thing Aina learned about the boy. He didn't have the name. He said that the "others" didn't have names either, that it wasn't natural for a "Chosen" to have a name.

Aina didn't know what he was talking about, what Chosens were, who the others were. 

But she didn't care. She never cared.

And so she gave him a name. 'Antony' she had said. 'I'll call you Antony. Just calling you boy is weird. So your names Antony.'

He had looked at her with an expression mixed with disdain and confusion, but hadn't said anything else afterwards. The name fit him though. He looked like an Antony. Aina didn't know why.

There were three reasons that she hadn't killed Antony on the spot. One, he posed no threat. Two, he had no supplies with him to gain. Three, he was familiar, scarily familiar, like Aina had known him before type of familiar.

The two didn't say anything as they wandered aimlessly through the corridor. Aina would constantly glance behind her, making sure that Antony would suddenly jump up and attack her.

Eventually, the wooden walls shifted into catacombs, dirt shelves with skulls and bones jutting out of the Earth at odd angles. The skulls seemed to turn as the two wandered down the hallways, following the two's every step with the shadows that were their eyes.

\---

_So much had changed. So much had changed that it scared him. Things weren't like this before. Sure, there were monsters, but the maze wasn't to this extent. The labyrinth didn't organize itself and shelve bones and ashes before. It didn't allow people to walk through walls, didn't grant humans super strength, didn't grant humans night vision, didn't grant humans the ability to survive without food or water._

_It scared him._

_The humans there were either incredibly similar to Chosens, or turning into monsters._

_He couldn't stand it._


	13. Plant Growth

_The girl could only stand there and watch. A boy covered in blood and flowers stood before her._

_He shook his head. "No...You can't... forbidden....follow me...try...inevitably lead to death."_

_She stood just three feet away from him, but couldn't hear the words that left his mouth. She reached a hand forward, stepping forward, trying to reach out towards him._

_He backed away, shaking his head, the vines of flowers wrapping themselves around his body._

_"It will be your turn one day, but not yet." He seemed to say. Then he stepped back, allowing the vines to grow over him, the thorns of the plant digging into his flesh and drawing blood._

_The girl could only stand and watch._

_Then the boy was gone._

_The girl blinked. Once. Twice. What was she doing there? Why did she walk out into the caves that late at night? Alone, of all things? She let out a confused huff, then turned around to walk back to the beach._

_The stones below her crumbled._

_And she fell._

_Black._

_\---_

_The boy could only stand there as he watched all of his memories wash away, both the happy and the painful._

_'It'd be okay.' He told himself. 'At least she is still human. At least she is still alive.' Unlike him, she'd forget without regret, not even realizing that she'd forgotten. It'd be alright._

_He'd forget soon. Sure, he'd forget with regret, but at least he'd forget._

_Maybe he was a coward like this, but he didn't care. A lot of pain would be to come in the next life. All he had to do was hope that she wouldn't get herself wrapped up in all of this._

_\---_

_The girl remembered waking up to blindly lights and the smell of disinfectant. She didn't remember anything before that. And after that, she had trouble remembering._

_It was as if every memory she made after a certain deletion point was corrupted._

_After that, she learned not to trust her memory, she learned to trust only the things she knew and learned._

_\---_

Aina blinked rapidly, scrunching her nose up at the intruding memory. She was running through a sandy beach, yelling at someone to hurry up. After that, everything was just a blur. Aina lifted up her hand and whacked herself in the back of the head with the heel of her palm, forcing herself back to the present.

A lot of things really did not make sense at all.


	14. Monster

Monsters were plentiful in the labyrinth, much more so than in the past, that was what Antony realized. Aina had already killed and burned three fully-turned monsters and killed five partially-turned ones.

He wanted to say something, ask if she knew why there were so many monsters. He wanted to ask if she knew her way back to the grand throne room, and if she did, if they could get there.

Aina didn't seem like the type to talk much. The most words that had gone between them was twenty, and that had been when they were just introducing themselves at the very beginning.

Antony realized what the elders had meant by the Labyrinth being incredibly disorienting. He'd take one step forward in a metal-plated hallway, close his eyes, then open them again and he'd be in a dirt tunnel. Perhaps that was why Aina insisted on tying their wrists together with a long piece of animal skin(? for all he knew it could be intestines, but seeing the strength of the stuff, he didn't know what to think).

Antony sighed to himself as he watched Aina slash down another monster. She regained her posture, wiping off her sword as she watched the body burn.

"Do you..." Antony decided to try his luck. "Do you know of a throne room?"

At this, Aina evidently flinched. 

"How." She shot a disturbing look at Antony. "How do you know about that place." She dashed forward, grabbing Antony by the collar. "Each corridor only opens up once. After that they close. And _I_ was the only person there."

Antony didn't faze. "It's a story from the elders. Of the Chosens. If we can get back there, we can close the Labyrinth."

Aina's grip on his shirt loosened. "If we close the Labyrinth..."

"Every monster in here will be turned. The Chosens will disappear to the void. Anyone who can survive in society will return to society without their memories."

"So in other words I could leave."

"Yes." _I don't know._

Aina's eyes narrowed, but then she let go and sighed. "Fine. I'll let you know that direction isn't anything here though. The only way we can find our we back there is if we walk" She tapped her head. "With our consciousnesses. It's possible to return if you hold a strong connection to a certain place. That's the way this place and the way the mind works."

Antony's eyes lit up as he nodded.


	15. Suicide (Trigger Warning)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning
> 
> In case you missed the first one.

_The girl could only stand there as she stared at the body that hung in her room. Her mother's eyes looked back down at her, pained, dull, and lifeless. A part of her wanted to scream out of fear, the other for help, and the final to simply stand there in shock._

_It was the third option that she chose, until the shock wore off._

_She dashed out of the room to tell her father. She stopped in the kitchen, opening her mouth to call out to someone._

_But who was it that she was going to talk to? What was she going to talk about?_

_She'd forgotten again, and this time it was something important. She bit her bottom lip, then turned back around and walked out into the forest that was her back yard._

_She always went out there when she forgot things. To wander around in the woods and forget that she forgot. Just wander around and explore. And hopefully remember the thing that she had forgotten._

_That day, she'd returned to a broken family, and a dead father who hung beside her mother._

_Perhaps the tunnels were her punishment for forgetting such a thing. Perhaps she had forgotten something even greater than that and that was why she'd ended up in the tunnels._

_The girl couldn't know for certain. Without the triggers at home, she was slowly forgetting again. The only thing she knew for certain that she'd always hang on to would be her name, but that would be it._

_She prayed that she wouldn't lose any more memories._

\---

_The boy could only watch and wonder. Why?_

_They told him that everyone woke up in the Underneath without their memories, that everyone who woke up in the Underneath had been chosen by a greater being to monitor the Labyrinth, that everyone who woke up in the Underneath had been cleansed of their memories, able to start forward anew._

_He didn't know his name, who he was, who he knew, and where he had been when he first woke up._

_They just called him Apprentice C-4 in the beginning. In the end the still called him Apprentice C-4 . His mentor was Mentor C._

_It felt empty there, lifeless almost._

_He struggled to understand why._


	16. Cannibalism

The most distinctive memory Aina had of the Labyrinth was that man who had been eating another person. She'd been wandering around in an ice cavern close enough to the surface that there were no monsters when the walls suddenly shifted into intertwining vines. There, in the middle of the corridor, knelt a ragged man. Blood covered his hands and mouth, and he glanced around frantically like a panicked animal.

In front of him lay a mutilated body, blood and guts simply everywhere on the ground. The man had the heart of the body clutched in his hands, and it seemed as if he were eating it when Aina had first stumbled upon him.

It didn't take long for her to freak out and put a knife through the man's head.

Unlike many of the other memories of the tunnels close to the surface, that particular memory was sharp and clear. Perhaps it had been because the man was something so close to a monster that she couldn't forget.

And as for the present, she felt like she wouldn't forget Antony. He gave off that kind of vibe that she felt was unforgettable.

She didn't know why though, and it disturbed her.

\---

Aina really wasn't joking when she said that the maze was constantly shifting. Sure, he had seen things like it before, but not to that extent. It had only been about twenty feet of walking on the surface and they'd already phased through three settings.

No wonder Aina wanted to get out of there.

"So how did you get down here to begin with?"

Aina shrugged. "Don't really remember. I'd always had trouble remembering stuff. I think I was wandering around in a forest or something. Next thing I knew, stuck in some dirt tunnel. From there, it was just aimless wandering until I got to a set of stone stairs. I should've ignores those, looking back now, but idiot I was decided to head down. And here I am now." She raised her arms, motioning around her.

"What about you?" Aina lowered her arms. "You said you were an apprentice, but what about before that?"

Antony could only bite his lip. "My... memories were wiped once I became an apprentice. I don't know anything about the me before that."

Aina raised her eyebrow. "So they basically erased the you from before."

"Yeah, basically. I was told that they wiped my presence from the memories of other people too."

Aina sighed, then turned around, something that sounded suspiciously like _'well aren't we similar'_ slipping from her lips.

Antony could only assume.


	17. Free Day

_"Do you believe that it was wise to allow him to be the first to set foot outside of the void?"_

_"I do not know what to believe now. If I'm being honest, none of us do."_

_"Still, he holds a relation with that girl."_

_"That girl who reopened the Labyrinth?"_

_"Yes. I fear we may have made a mistake."_

_"No. It'll be alright. That relationship with her is exactly what is needed. For now we can only watch."_

_\---_

Aina lay sprawled out in the cold ground. They'd ended up in a room constructed entirely of ice. Those kinds of corridors and rooms were incredibly rare. She assumed that the surface directly above them would probably be something like the ocean at the poles, but she never knew for sure.

Antony stood a couple feet away from her, glancing up and down at the walls. Multiple creatures had been frozen into the ice, ranging from the average fish to weird blobby invertebrates. They had all been frozen exactly where they were, one creature in the middle of eating another, and a school of fish scattered by a shark-like creature.

Aina could swear that she could see a preserved aquatic dinosaur in the distance, but she didn't know for certain. She let out a breath, a small cloud forming in front of her due to the cold air.

Antony turned around. "So where to now? There's no corridors from here. The route we came in from closed up a while ago."

Aina simply raised her arm, lazily pointing at the ceiling. "How good are you at jumping?" A single hole, just large enough to fit a person, had opened up in the caverned ceiling."

Antony glanced up to where she was pointing, then sighed. "I think I could make it. What about y-"

Before he even finished his sentence, Aina was on her feet, and had jumped up to the ceiling. She dug her nails into the ice, somehow keeping a grip, then slowly pulled herself up out of the room. 

"No problem." Aina called down. "Your turn."

Antony was seriously starting to question if she was really just a human with enhanced abilities. But at this point, he should've really learned to not question things anymore. 


	18. Drowned

Aina scrunched up her nose as she studied the body that was floated in the ice-encased water. It was the body of a young girl, the skin grey and perfectly preserved. Her face was contorted in the face of someone struggling for air, her arms frozen in a position that suggested that she had been struggling to reach the surface.

Aina rapped her fist on the ice, listening to the hollow sound that suggested that there was still liquid water behind the sheet of ice. The poor soul behind that ice had most definitely drowned, but whether she had slipped in by accident or been pulled down beneath the surface by monsters, Aina did not know.

"Can we keep going? It's honestly pretty chilly in here." Antony clicked his tongue impatiently.

Aina shot a look at him. "You think it's cold in here?"

"Not really." Antony shrugged. "Just a bit chilly. But I don't sense temperatures like most people."

Aina raised an eyebrow, then walked away from the ice wall. "I don't feel temperature at all then." She walked past Antony, down a corridor that had opened up while she had been poking at the body behind the ice.

Once again, the setting changed really quickly. This setting however, Aina did not recognize.

The walls and ceiling appeared in such a way that it made Aina feel as if she were on the surface, but once she got close enough to the wall, she could reach out her hand and only touch stone.

The setting of the hallway however, was incredibly familiar. On one side, was a lake. Aina and Antony walked along a sandy patch of beach. On the other wall was a forest, wind blowing through the branches. The ceiling showed a bright blue sky and a dazzling sun, a few wispy clouds here and there.

\---

Deja Vu. That was the only way Antony could describe the setting around him. The memory corridor perhaps? No. That wouldn't make sense. That was in the Chosen's world. There was no way the memory corridor could've ended up in the Labyrinth, but...

It all felt really familiar to him, like it was something from a past memory from before he became an apprentice. Judging by the look on Aina's face, she seemed to recognize her surroundings too, but had long forgotten them.

A nagging thought at the back of Antony's mind wondered if they had perhaps known each other before the Labyrinth, but he quickly brushed the thought off.

There was no point in worrying about the past.


	19. Decapitation

_No, that wasn't what had happened. That wasn't what had happened at all. There shouldn't be a body over in that corner. There wasn't a head rolling towards his feet. That headless corpse on the counter should be on the table. Everything was messed up. That wasn't how it was._

_The boy ran his tongue over his lips, wandering through the bloodstained kitchen. Who was it that had done all this? They hadn't killed the two people correctly. The headless woman should have been stabbed first, not shot. The dead man in the corner should have been poisoned, not gutted._

_Nothing was right. Nothing was as it should be. Everything was out of order. He needed to fix it, but he couldn't. They were already dead. There was no way to bring them back to life. Perhaps he could find a substitute, but then where would he go from there?_

_He walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. The area was just as blood-covered. Once again, he could that something was wrong. There shouldn't have been any blood at all in the living room. It should've remained clean._

_Then he saw the girl. Her body was still, unmoving. A bloodstained knife lay in her slack hand. Her image kept flickering in and out of sight, much like a glitching character in a horror game._

_He knelt down and reached out to her for some reason. A bolt of pain shot through his arm as his fingers made contact with her arm._

_Everything around him began to phase and flicker, slowly disappearing into black. The only thing he was aware of was the pain that had engulfed his entire body._

_Huh, that was one way to die._

\---

Antony blinked quickly. What he had just seen was most definitely a memory, but it didn't feel like his memory, so whose memory was it? He bit his bottom lip. There was the minute chance that the memory could be someone else's, and an even smaller chance that the memory was Aina's.

Aina seemed to be unfazed. Whatever had happened to Antony had most definitely not happened to her. Antony ran his tongue over his lips before picking up his feet and dashing forward to catch up with Aina.

\---

Memories. They were a precious thing, Aina realized that. That corridor had shown her fragments, forgotten things like beach wakes and games of hide-and-seek in the forest. Things like her friends and family, the happiness of the surface.

Things like the pain of losing ones that mattered.

The memory she favored over the rest of the rush of surface memories was the memory of her running over cold stone in some cave systems beside a lake beach, a young boy chasing after her.

Perhaps if she gave things time, she'd be able to remember more things, be able to recall memories that she previously would've thought were lost.

But... there was that stray memory. She'd shot a man in the chest. That memory didn't fit in with the rest of the memories. That memory was a memory, just not hers.

Just a memory that didn't belong amongst the rest.


	20. Ropes

Memories. They were untrustworthy, often useless things. But at the same time, they provided a pleasant escape.

Though if Aina was being honest, that was rarely the case.

That corridor had sowed her many things, but they had all been useless memories, memories that held no important information about Aina as a human, memories that didn't show any important things that would've explained how she ended up in the maze.

Aina sighed, jumping over a chasm in the ground to the other side. The terrain had steadily changed the moment Antony joined her in wandering through the maze. Instead of hallways made of a single material, she found herself wandering through corridors that made it seem as if she were outside. This particular corridor had rising walls on either side, a thin strip of sky high above her head as if she was walking along the bottom of a canyon.

"So is this supposed to be a part of the Labyrinth?" Aina called over her shoulder.

"I think so. I'm not certain, but if the surroundings begin to fade away from copied templates, sort of hallways, to backgrounds that could be easily seen on the surface, we're near some sort of a core checkpoint."

Aina stopped in her tracks and turned around to shoot a confused look at Antony.

"Basically a space set aside by the elders for any Chosens that end up in the Labyrinth. It's sort of an emergency bunker."

Aina nodded, then continued walking. "What's in those bunkers."

"Food, weapons, water. I don't think we'd need the food and water, seeing our..." He trailed off. "condition, but weapons we'll need. They usually have archives of information stored there too, in case Chosens lose their memories after wandering through the Labyrinth.

Once again, Aina stopped in her tracks. "So that would be something we could use."

Antony nodded. "Up ahead should be a solid stone wall. If we can scale that, at the top there should be a metal hatch."

Aina grinned slightly. "And how to you suggest we get up there to begin with?"

Antony reached his hand forward, pointing down with two fingers, drawing a circle in the air. He flipped his hand over suddenly, and a coarse rope manifested in his hands.

He smiled. "Magic can be a really useful thing."

Aina shot a look at him. "You should teach me that some time." She reached forward to take the rope, turning back around to continue walking.

"Magic isn't for everyone. Besides. I think you've already figured it out as it is."


	21. Ghost

It was something straight out of a movie. Or at least, Aina thought it was. After a great amount of effort, even for her, she'd managed to pry the door open, then jumped down to the bunker below. Dirt and dust covered the ground, cabinets, and table that sat littered randomly throughout the room.

The moment Antony's feet made contact with the ground, the entire room lit up, strings of lights on the wall suddenly glowing. Aina walked over to the table, which had begun to glow dully, and placed her hand on the surface.

_I do hope that you have not forgotten everything._

Aina could only stand there and blink.

_That'd make everything a lot easier for our system._

_I'd say the same for the both of you._

_It's rare that two people have stumbled upon this place at once._

_What are you?_

_Neither of you are human._

_But nor are you Chosen, or monster._

_Why are you here?_

_Oh. That's right. You can't answer that._

_Perhaps this will help._

_\---_

_\---_

_Aina was running over a sandy beach, Antony not far behind her._

_"Hurry up!" She had yelled. "We've got to get to the caves before mum does." A smile was etched onto her face._

_Antony yelled something back, but Aina couldn't hear it over the sound of the wind rushing past her ears._

_The scene shifted._

_Aina stood in the cave, horrified. Antony stood in front of her, his vines wrapping around his body, thorns digging into his skin and drawing blood._

_"It's fine." He says. "At least you'll be okay."_

_The scene shifts again._

_This time, Aina is in a kitchen, her kitchen, a knife in her hand._

_"You knew, didn't you?" She says, tilting her head slightly. "You knew that I was the one who was supposed to be taken, not Antony. That's why when I came back, I forgot him, and you tried to kill me."_

_The floor falls away._

_This time, she's standing in the living room, the knife in her hand._

_That's when everything glitches._

_Pain shoots through her as she collapses to the ground._

_When she wakes up, she's in the woods._

_The memories of in-between continue to pour into her mind._

_Never-ending._

_Never-ceasing._

_Aina wonders why she forgot everything._

_Aina wonders what she is._

_Aina wonders how she could've lived, haven forgotten everything._

_And she wonders about Antony, why he forgot, how he survived, everything.  
_

_\---_

_Antony wonders why he forgot and how Ghost knew._

_He wondered how Ghost knew everything. There was a reason why Chosens operated under Ghost, and why Ghost only took the form of a computer, but he never knew why._

_\---_

_Ghost smiled to themselves, watching the two halflings from a window in another world. They reached a hand forward, then spoke._

_"The things you remember and forget do not affect anything. The things that happen do. Memory is simply knowledge from the past put into action._

_"Use this information wisely my children."_


	22. Mass-Murder

_Antony stood in the center of the town, a blood-covered handgun in his hand. He wandered through the streets, stepping over the fallen bodies before him._

_And he wasn't Antony._

_It was confusing, in all honesty. His mind was still Antony, his thoughts were still Antony, but everything else, his body, his actions, the world he existed in, wasn't a part of the Antony he identified by._

_If one could sigh inside their head, that was what Antony did. At this point his existential crisis had just confused himself._   
  


_Not-Antony sidestepped as a bullet whizzed past him, grazing his cheek. Not-Antony didn't wince in pain, though Antony knew for a fact that it stung like hell._

_Only then did Antony really see what was around him._

_The entire town was devoid of life, blood staining the ground and covering the walls of surrounding buildings. Mutilated bodies lay everywhere, and those that remained intact were covered in knife and bullet wounds._

_Not-Antony made his way the direction of where that bullet had been fired, spinning the handgun around in his hand._ _  
_

He raised his arm, then pressed down on the trigger twice. The shots were fired.

_The next thing Antony knew, was that he and Not-Antony had fallen to the ground, a bullet having been put through the back of their head._

\---

_"I see why you chose them now."_

_"Do you really? Because they haven't seen everything yet."_

_"Death is not a force to go against. Whoever it was that brought them back-"_

_"Exactly. Whoever it was that brought them back. The thing is, there is not a spell out there that can bring back the dead, let alone allow them to travel through worlds the way they did."_

_"Their memories are fragmented."_

_"A side-effect._

_The greater the power, the greater the sacrifice. I have my theories on how this all came into play, but for now, we watch.  
_


	23. Sliced

_They watched the two wander. They watched the lost souls travel from world to world, leaving valuable memories behind with each step in their pursuit of power._

_They raised their hand, pulling strings, manipulating lies, hoping that one day they would join their friends._

_With a single knife, they sliced through the fabric that could not be touched. With a single stroke, they tore through the seams that bound the walls together._

_With a single choice, they stepped back and waited for everything to fall back in place._

\---

"Who the hell are you." Aina snarled, knife at Antony's throat. "Who the HELL are you."

Antony stepped back, tense, yet unwavering in Aina's fierce glare. "Antony. Antony. You know me. I know you. And I don't know why, or how, we remembered."

Aina didn't lower the blade. "Then who am I?" her voice cracked. It was the first time that Antony had seen her show any human emotion.

"Aina. but who you really are- that's up to you."

Aina lowered her knife, a loose laugh escaping from her lips. "Since when have you been the wise one?"

Antony cracked a smile. "Probably ever since the beginning."

\---

_"They're not finished yet. They remember, but it isn't over."_

_"It's never over everything is a continuous loop, no matter what happens, it's always something that will start over again. For an infinite amount of time."_

\---

_Broken_

_Shattered_

_Disoriented and confused._

_The urge to escape_

_to be free_

_the only thing pushing them onward._

\---

A couple days worth of wandering around in the Labyrinth gave both Aina and Antony a lot of time to sort out their memories. There were many. Some were fragments from a childhood in Medieval Europe. Others were pictures of brutal slaughters in futuristic lands.

Aina knew a lot of things now. She remembered a lot of things.

This life had been significantly different from the rest. Perhaps this time they'd be able to break free from the loop. Perhaps this time they could confront the one that trapped them.

She continued onward.


	24. Guts

_I'm sure you're all very confused. Confused as to how we got here, confused as to why this is all happening. Our heroes, if we can call them that, know why, but you don't._

_Let me tell you a story, a story of a young girl and a young boy. Neither of which ever felt the love of a parent, both of which suffered greatly._

_The spirits above gave them a second chance upon their deaths, only for the two to commit unimaginable acts. What acts they are, I do not know. I never will know._

_That was the start. From that point after, the two souls were cursed, or blessed, however you want to look at it, with a power that should've only belonged to the spirits. They traveled from life to life, world to world, living under the names of many names, many faces, many masks. And with each life, came a death. With each death, the world they lived in came down with them._

_But then they came upon a world that was crueler than the first, a world where they were separated, and the only way to survive was to retreat from being human._

_And so here we are now, in the Labyrinth, on the border between reality and non-existence. Two souls that should've moved on millennia ago, wandering through the everchanging paths, mingling with monsters of deformed minds, leaving behind fragments of every past along the way, not remember that they forgot, fake stories put in place by the one who watches over._

_And out of pity, for the hope of something changing, of no more worlds falling with them, the spirits restored the memories, hoping that perhaps, they could get through the fabric that bound the worlds, hoping that they would escape._

_And hoping that perhaps they would land in the void, disappearing, taking their curse and their monsters with them._

\---

Aina threw a lit match onto the body, kicking off entrails and flesh off her boots as she stepped back. She let out a breath, then turned around, holding up another match to light up the stone walls.

In dried blood was a painting, one that of a winding road. The road led to a picture of a cavern entrance, guarded by what looked like an angel and a devil. Extending from the cavern was another path, this one leading to a lake. Leading up from the lake, was a stairwell, the stairwell leading up to a hole that had been chiseled into the wall.

"I take it that most wanderers can't get here?" Antony stepped up behind Aina.

Aina drew in a breath, then nodded. "Yeah. We're almost there. Almost there."


	25. Sacrifice

_Before the Labyrinth, there were just corridors. Corridors that wound their way underground, through air and water, winding through the fabrics of space. And within the corridors, wandered Chosen, a race of people that weren't human, yet looked human, acted human, had the customs of humans._

_Then our two cursed ones made their introduction. That was the beginning of the Fall. Slowly, slowly, the people changed, monsters appeared, death-traps littered the once peaceful lands, normal, healthy people turned into monsters, and those they killed would rise up again, killing even more._

_They believed that the spirits above had cursed them, for what reason, they did not know. And so sacrifices were made. When that didn't work, brawls broke out, peopled stealing, hexing, cheating, just to gain the tools and supplies that they needed to survive._

_A haven was built, a lake filled with acid, guarded by the guardians that had once protected the gates of the corridors. Those that were lucky enough to stumble past the quarries, into the castle ruins, past the thrones and into the lake would be granted an escape, whether it be a painless death or a chance at a life in another world._

_Word passed among the survivors, that if the ones that started the Fall were to either die or leave that world behind, everything would collapse, the monsters killed, survivors wiped from existence. And by that point in time, that was a hopeful ending._

_And so, here we are now, following in the shadows of the two who started it all._

\---

The terrain had changed into a dirt road, a fake sky overhead. In the distance stood a set of towering mountains. Aina had broken into a light jog, making her way over fallen logs and stones towards the mountains, Antony not far behind.

"So what do you think that guardians are like? There weren't any memories on that- not for me at least."

Aina shrugged. "Don't know. I don't have any recollection of it either. The only thing that I can guess is that this life was the first time we'd even heard of stuff like that. The only things I do know about this place are how we got in, how to get out, and all the people I've killed. Aside from that there's really nothing much else."

Antony nodded, then continued jogging forward.


	26. Glass/Mirror

The caves were like mirrors, shards of reflective material covering every edge, every surface. Shards of glass littered the floor. Aina glanced up at the reflections, each one showing a different face, but all of them mirroring her movements.

Perhaps, she thought, that those different faces had been all of the Ainas in her past lives. Many of the faces she recognized, but there were many that were unfamiliar to her. She didn't doubt that Antony saw the same. He, after all, like her, had seen similar things, lived multiple lives, held multiple names and faces. 

\---

Antony's vision was completely obstructed.

The situation reminded him of those fun-house mirrors in another world, where one would wander into a maze only to continuously walk into walls. The only difference with this place was that they would constantly be walking in a straight line, and thus it was impossible (or near impossible at least) to get lost, but even then, everything was still incredibly disorientating.

One particular reflection caught his eye. A zombie-like figure was staggering in that frame, a head of tousled black hair, and a missing arm, quite literally skin and bones. The body was covered entirely in blood, yet still walking forward. Antony couldn't help but wonder what he had forgotten, and never remembered, about that one world in particular.

The caverns were dark save for the glow of the crystal walls, and quiet, save for the drop of what sounded like water, off far in the distance. The ceiling slowly sloped upward, as did the ground, as Antony and Aina slowly began to ascend what Antony assumed to be the mountain.

The walls on either side slowly widened, and the mirror-like stones faded into regular stones, if one could call glowing, blood-red rocks regular stones.

\---

_"They're drawing near. I don't want to risk this. It's better for them to remain trapped and only bring that world down."_

_"It'd only be temporary then. They'd eventually die and move on to the next world, cursing that one too. And besides, no matter what, as long as they reach the lake, they will be stripped of their curse."_

_"And if they reach the lake, what will become of us? Where will our power go?"_

_"For a spirit, you are too selfish. We've existed for long enough. Let our power move on to a new generation, whether they be spirits or ghouls."_

_"Let's say that they don't make it. What will you do then?"_

_"Oh, I won't worry about that. Those two are stronger than any of us think. Besides, that world's defenses are crumbling. Even a regular human with no powers would be able to make it to the lake. They'll be able to survive. And what happens next will not in our control."_


	27. Tarot

The caverns were far larger than Aina had originally anticipated. Slowly, the stone began to shift, the surroundings became familiar. She was back in the cavern from before. She was back in the cavern from before she met Antony. Before the start of remembering, from the time when she forgot.

That could only mean that they were close to the castle. How she didn't see the guardians last time, Aina did not know. Perhaps they were further back in the castle, in an area that Aina hadn't yet reached, but that would be a flaw in the painting.

She broke into a sprint, dashing off into the cavern, not bothering to look behind to see if Antony was still following her.

\---

_"Do you know what Tarot Cards are? They're a way that humans attempt to predict the future, cards drawn, certain ones representing fortune, others representing death and bad luck._

_"The ones who created the cards never realized how foolish they were, never realized that they were actually messing with powers that were never theirs, to begin with._

_"Perhaps one day, they begin to realize the curses they've brought upon their world, all with the creation of a simple stack of cards._

_"They never predicted the future, they changed it."_

\---

Aina stood in front of the body, staring down at the decaying flesh. Dried blood covered the ground around it, and a clear crystal spike skewered straight through the body's chest. The face had decayed to the point that bone could be seen, and an ungodly stench rose from the corpse.

A part of her wondered how it got there, this far into the caverns, but didn't bother to question it any further.

The cavern ceiling rose even further, disappearing into the mist above. Grey brick slowly began to appear in the distance, stepping forward out of the heavy fog.

Finally.


	28. Puppet/Doll

The guardians were not at all what Aina had been expecting. Rather than two living, breathing, or at the very least enchanted, figures, instead in their place stood two crumbling stone statues, both of which had deteriorated to the point that they were barely recognizable. One statue held a gun in their hand, the other statue a sword. The gunman was missing a leg, the swordsman their right arm, and neither had a head.

It was as if they were puppets that had lost their puppetmasters, simply standing there, useless and unmoving, unable to fight for themselves, now victim to the elements.

They stood in front of the castle gates. This castle was one different than the one from before. It rose vertically to the ceiling of the cavern, the top unseen, shrouded with fog.

Aina continued forward, passing the guardians, not looking back twice at their weak figures, former glory stripped down to nothing more than crumbling granite.

The castle was similar to what Aina had seen before the winding staircase, the hallway with paintings, the muraled throne room.

But this time, there were differences. Antony followed behind Aina the entire way. She could see without a lighter. The paintings were vibrant, details easily made out. The rug was brand new, color a bright red and not dull with age. The walls looked as if they were freshly painted. The mural on the ceiling of the throne room was complete, colors vibrant and telling a story.

And behind the throne, was a door. A door that hadn't been there before, in place of the bloodied body that Aina knew she had seen.

She pulled open the wooden door, revealing a world within the throne, something that didn't make sense spacially, but she didn't care. It didn't matter. If they were so much as even close to the lake, they'd be fine. They'd be able to survive.

Antony was the first to step foot into the doorway. Aina followed soon after. The white light shifted into a countryside scene, trees towering everywhere that the eye could see. A single dirt path wound into the distance. It was almost the spitting image of outside the cave, as if she were heading backward rather than forward.

Disorientating and all, she continued on.  
  



	29. Blood/Bleeding

It was pretty much a mountain climb. Dead trees shadowed over each side of the path, and jagged stones cut into the bottoms of Aina's feet through her worn boots. She was certain that she was bleeding, and Antony would have been worse off, having been in shoes thinner than hers. But she didn't worry about the pain. On those mountain roads, there were no monsters that could kill them, only bad luck, wrong choices, and curses.

The guardians had caught Aina off guard. She didn't expect them to be as they were, dead and stripped of their former glory, nothing more than two crumbling stone statues. Sometimes she wondered what really had happened in that world, why everything went to hell, why so many died, why the monsters were born, why the gods of that world had abandoned their people.

A part of her wondered if it was her fault if it was because of her that everything, in every world, fell and crumbled, that every step she took and every time she fell, she took the world down around with her.

Aina broke into a jog, clambering up the loose stones and jagged rocks as she began to ascend the side of a mountain.

She could already see the change in the stone, further up along the winding path. She said nothing, and neither did Antony. The two continued along their own paths up the mountain, looking ahead based on their own choices.

She paused part-way on the edge of the rock, their mountain hike having shifted to a mountain climb. Her hands had started bleeding, cut by the jagged rock. Antony had somehow ended up above her, though she didn't bother to question how.

(they had lead different lives after all)

Once she reached the ledge, a hand came down to help her up. She took Antony's hand, pulled herself up onto the stone ledge. The two stood facing a stone cavern, the interior too dark to be seen, as if all light had just been erased from that exact location.

She and Antony stepped forward, into the darkness, wandering straight forward into the dark and damp tunnel.

They came to a stop at a large cavern, a lake sitting in the center of it, the entire room glowing an eerie purple.


	30. Acid

"We're done here." Aina stepped towards the edge of the lake, raising her head to glance at the cavern ceilings. "We're finished with this. We can leave now, disappear, or live another life." she lowered her gaze and turned back to face Antony. "Perhaps this time we can really become human. Perhaps this time we can really be born, really live, and really die, then forget and repeat the cycle all over again."

Antony could only dip his head in agreement as he stepped towards the edge of the lake.

The two stepped in, not a second glance behind. The acid of the lake broiled upon making contact with their flesh, eating away at muscle and bone. Neither cried out in pain despite the burning agony, neither said a word, simply falling down, down, waiting for the dark to take over.

\---

_"We already gave them a second chance a long time ago. They used it against us."_

_"But what was it that they did? It was never recorded; forgotten in the passage of time. Perhaps one day we will revisit it, but for now, we watch. After all that time, they deserve to relax. After all that change, they deserve to be at rest. Give them another chance."_

\---

A young girl ran over the sandy seaside beach. A small white terrier dashed not far ahead of her. Her parents walked along the shoreline not far behind her, talking in hushed whispers.

Her foot caught in the sand and she pitched forward, landing on her hands and knees. The small dog whipped around and pattered back to her, sniffing at her hands and arms as she struggled to fight back tears.

"Wah~ are you okay?"

The girl's breathing suddenly calmed. She looked up to see a familiar face. A young boy kneeled next to her dog, a hand outstretched.

"Just get back up and keep on walking." He smiled, tilting his head slightly. "The pain doesn't last forever."

The girl paused, then took his hand, allowing herself to be pulled up. She brushed the sand off her legs, planting her feet into the ground.

"Thanks." She turned around to see her mother dashing forward, then turned back around. 

"What's your name?" She could see the boy's father in the distance, dragging a young child with him, running towards his son.

"Oh, I'm Anthony. What about you?"

"Ayna. I'm Ayna."

Anthony smiled, his face lit up by the setting sun. "Friends?"

"I don't think anyone can become friends this quickly."

He simply scoffed in return. "So friends or not?"

"Yeah," Ayna smiled slightly. "Definitely friends."  
  
  
  



	31. A Poem

Falling.

Flying.

What shall become of us next?

This world is finished.

On to the next one.

When can we repay for what we have done?

When will we finally, truly be free?

When shall we finish drifting and finally find a world where we can belong.

Where we can live.

Love.

Hate.

Break.

Be together.

And never forget.

When will the time come

for us to move on

to the final world

and end this endless wandering

perhaps

remember everything

that was forgotten

and fade off

into a plane

where

nothing

matters.

~End  
  


  



End file.
